


Versprechen

by elruesta



Series: Zusammen [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift Bond, Falling In Love, Fluff, Love, M/M, POV First Person, Pre-Slash, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elruesta/pseuds/elruesta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This was one promise that wouldn't lie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Versprechen

**Author's Note:**

> The "I" is Gottlieb, the "you" is Geiszler. In which Hermann is a sappy romantic for Newt. The title of the work is German for "promise," I believe.
> 
> Just to clarify, this is strictly movie-verse, and under the premise that both are single and met for the first time at the Shatterdome.

It all started when they called me to Hong Kong.

Against Kaiju, the numbers and data science provided were the only things in which we could have faith. I was to be one of two elite research scientists in the Shatterdome's K-Science Lab, working to learn all that could be learned about the Kaiju, to help eradicate the invaders and the war itself.

Essentially, my job was counting: fancy counting, laced with derivatives and algorithms, pounds of chalk and years of mathematical prowess. I arrived at the lab on that first official day invigorated with the promise of number-work.

I did not know whom I expected to be my partner, but I was sent the exact opposite.

For there you were, all covered in Kaiju tattoos and abound with more energy than an H-bomb. You nearly hopscotched over to me, hand extended for a shake. "Pleasure to meet you. Dr. Newton Geiszler, but please, call me Newt."

I shook your hand reluctantly. "A likewise pleasure, Dr. Geiszler. Dr. Hermann Gottlieb." I attempted to uphold some level of formality with you.

You would never catch on.

I had expected a scientist with a demeanor comparable to mine, not this overgrown-child Kaiju enthusiast. I wondered, if there was a God, how much he must enjoy smiting me.

Ironic, then, that in a few months I didn't mind your company. One long night of calculations in particular had me standing at that chalkboard until I thought my legs would break with the dawn. Just when the sky turned from black to blue, footsteps sounded down the hall, and in you stepped, babbling away about Kaiju-this Kaiju-that, with a tray piled to near Kaiju-height with coffee and breakfast for two. You set down the tray on the nearest bench, pulled up two chairs, and began to drag me over by the arm, stifling my protests with "you've been working too hard"s and "come on, I made it just for us"s. Over breakfast I continued your Kaiju-babble, adding my maths, and we talked until sunrise.

I started calling you Newton.

We bickered lovingly in the name of science, in the name of nothing at all. You dared to doubt my numbers; I dared to doubt your enthusiasm. My voice rose when you breached our rule concerning Kaiju entrails in my own work space, and yours rose when I refused to accept events that failed to follow predictive models. But we both respected each other's work and each other's minds.

And then you damaged your mind to further your work. I walked into the lab to find you shaking, seizing, eyes fluttering, blood sputtering from your nose. I saved you by an inch, and before I summoned Pentecost, I rounded on you. "I warned you, you know."

Your left eye was as red as fire, and your excitement burned even brighter. "But think of all that we've just learned! I'm really on to something here, Hermann, can't you see that?"

I sighed. To me that excitement looked all too familiar. When my words evaded me, I made my way to Pentecost.

The warmth that emanated from your eyes, from your smile, pushed down the first metaphorical domino. You weren't just kind to me. You were just _like_ me. I had figured the parameter of your Kaiju infatuation on a whole other plane than my numerical madness, when, in reality, our parameters were identical; your sine was my cosine to the circle that traced my dilated pupils. You were mad about beasts, I was mad about maths, but by Jove, we were both mad, mad all in the same.

Then, the day we were to destroy the rift, I found myself standing beside you before a destroyed city and two dead Kaiju. You were preparing for another drift, this time with a freshly deceased specimen - a young one (how fitting).

Yet, there were two other Kaiju signatures from the rift, only two. _Numbers do not lie. Politics and poetry and promises, these are lies. Numbers are as close as we get to the handwriting of God_. And the numbers weren't lying; the Kaiju were. As you frantically tapped your computer keys and scrambled for your headgear like a child with a pile of toys, I saw it again, saw you again: bloody-nosed, eyes closed, pale and shaking, but this time, not to return.

And so I interrupted your typing, adding a sequence that would allow me to drift as well, explaining my reasoning.

"You're serious? You would do that for me? Or you would - you would do that with me." The incredulity in your voice was nearly insulting.

"Well, with world wide destruction as a certain alternative, do I really have a choice?" Were there anyone else with whom I could choose to drift, the choice to me would be obvious.

Then, the drift itself. The neural handshake commenced, memories flashing at warp speeds like strobes, bouncing from lobe to lobe. The focus was on the Kaiju, but momentarily, I wavered. In a nanosecond, your memories lapped on the shores of my mind until they took me, grabbed me, pulled me under the waves in one harmonic motion. I swam in your childhood, dove through your adolescence, and surfaced just in time to notice you not far away in the pool of my own past. In a nanosecond, I cringed, for there was my scrawny, beaten-up, mad young self all bruised and tear-soaked right before your eyes. I mentally turned away.

The headgear came off, and our neural embrace ended, the low hum of your thoughts still echoing in my skull. Before I could speak personally, there were contents in my stomach that needed releasing and, most importantly, a world that needed saving.

They say those who meld find less and less use for words. A short helicopter ride later, back at the Shatterdome, when we received communications of the successful mission, you shouted and hollered, jumped and sang, and I couldn't help but grin. As you settled, you turned to me, smiled right back at me, and we needed no words. I saw it in the fractals of your irises, in the slope of your laugh lines, in the curve of your cheeks.

When the others exited the control center to celebrate elsewhere, you held out your arms, and I held out mine. You grabbed me, pecked my cheek, and embraced me. Before blue lights and holograms you lifted me up and spun us around in the first of many more hugs to come.

This was one promise that wouldn't lie.


End file.
